cover image Man Made Boy

Man Made Boy

Jon Skovron, read by the author. Listening Library, unabridged, eight CDs, 10 hrs., $55 ISBN 978-0-8041-2397-6

Seventeen-year-old Boy is the stitched-together son of Frankenstein’s monster and the Bride of Frankenstein. He lives in a Broadway theater in New York with a host of other monsters and mythological creatures. But otherwise, he’s a typical teenager, spending lots of time chatting online with friends (who don’t know he’s a monster) and yearning for something new and different. When he leaves home to see the outside world, he ends up having a more exciting—and far more dangerous—adventure than he ever imagined. Jon Skovron knows his characters inside and out, and it shows in his skillful narration. He brings out all the personality and emotions of his characters, as well as the excitement and suspense of the action-packed parts of his book. Best of all, Skovron creates a marvelously entertaining array of memorable character voices for the colorful cast, which includes a gruff werewolf, a sophisticated vampire, a German mechanical man, a Southern waitress, the English-accented granddaughters of Jekyll and Hyde, and at the center of it all, Boy, who sounds like a typical American teenager. With its blend of sci-fi, horror, action, romance, and—at its heart—the universal longing for identity and a place to belong, this audiobook should appeal to a wide range of listeners. Ages 12–up. A Viking hardcover. (Oct.)